Day 3: Amsterdam - Sigh. I had SUCH high hopes for today. We went to the Anne Frank House this morning and just walked right in thanks to my METICULOUS planning and ticket purchasing. It was NOT appreciated by most of the family members. The big boys understood the seriousness and sadness of the whole story and tour but Jensen still could not tell me more than "she was a girl who hid during the war". Well. No. So, of course, I launched into a "Mrs. McDonell" lecture about the holocaust and it's implications for future generations, especially NOW... He just stared at me and said, "Oh. Sorry Mom.... can we PLEASE get breakfast now?" I guess 2/3 of the kids is better than nothing.
Onward to our next activity, which I MISTAKENLY thought would be "culturally interesting"
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| The Red Light District (aka: The sex city) |
but turned out to be emotionally damaging, according to Riley, at least. We took a stroll (at 1:30 in the afternoon!) through the Red Light District. In yet another ironic twist, the little boys managed to see every single red-light, curtained doorway and its occupants and emerged at the end of the first street LITERALLY yelling at me, "Mom! You are a bad parent! You can't bring your kids to a sex city!" No lie. That is verbatim. On the other hand, Toby is looking at them bewildered and says, "that is strange, I thought there was supposed to be all these red lights and windows". Um... yes we were all walking down the same street at the same time and somehow THE MAN missed the show? Gawd! It was not like we could go back for a second trip! Riley told me that he was "officially shunning" me from the family until I got him back to our apartment. Because it was Father's Day, Bailey (so GENEROUSLY!) offered to stay with Toby and "walk around" with him. Yah, right. That was total charity I am sure!
After Toby and Bailey returned (TWO hours later!), next up was the child abandonment portion of our day that we are actually enjoying immensely and getting quite good at! Toby and I did not even attempt to lure the boys to the museums.
We just left them cookies, cheese and bread and took off! I can guarantee you it would not have been the same viewing the AMAZING Picasso, Mondrian, and Warhol paintings while being asked, "when do we get to leave?"
We then felt obligated to check out the potential restaurant for the evening meal by sampling the beverage selections. We were only looking out for the kid's needs, of course. As Toby chatted with the locals and the bartender joined us at our table, I ran (well not really, we ALL know I do NOT run) down to the corner where our flat is and grabbed the kids. We had a great meal and when they were done, we just sent them back home on their merry way while we finished our next round of drinks! THIS is the best part of teenagers! Foreign soil security detail and supervision services! I finally found the silver lining!
Tomorrow we are off to Bruges, Belgium where there is fun for everyone! It is the beer and chocolate capital of the world right? Until then....
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